


Strays of Detroit

by DreadlordTally



Series: Deus Ex Ficlets [1]
Category: Deus Ex (Video Games), Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Genre: Angst, Dogs, Gen, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 13:02:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13590600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreadlordTally/pseuds/DreadlordTally
Summary: Dogs shouldn't eat cereal, right?





	Strays of Detroit

He sees her on the way home.  Walks past her, stops.  Turns back.  (Thousands of stray dogs in Detroit.  Why this one?)

She's small, but not tiny.  She's dragging one hind leg and her right eye is gone.  She's grey, but that's not her color, it's just the grime and muck in her long, matted fur.  She doesn't move or bite when he scoops her up, and she rides limp in his arms, neither excited nor anxious.  Life has bled all the feeling out of her.

He deposits her in his apartment, puts down some blankets and water but doesn't have anything else for her so he goes out again.  (Dogs shouldn't eat cereal, right?)  On the way, he calls the closest vet and makes an appointment.

He needs dog food and a bed for her.  Two bowls, one for water and one for food.  Flea and tick shampoo.

He waits until she's done eating, then it's right into the sink.  This, too, she endures without complaint, soap and scissors working the worst of the mats out of her fur, her eyes dull, accepting.  Beaten.

He towel dries her then sets her up in her bed nested in wad of blankets and spends the next hour washing away the filth and dead fleas and sanitizing his sink again.  She's snoring by the time he's done.

He goes to bed, but rouses in middle of the night at the clicking of her nails on his hardwood floor, the rhythm of them made into a lopsided waltz by her bad leg.  The sound tracks through his living room, to his bedroom, and she jumps up on the bed, noses up to him.  Ends up tucking herself against his stomach.  (The warmest part of him.  One of the only parts they didn't take away and replace.)

In the light of morning, his grimy little grey dog of the stringy hair is revealed to be fluffy white, the ends of her fur a light tanned brown.  A toasted marshmallow of a dog.

She lays on his chest staring at him, the perfect triangles of her ears pricked up.

"Don't know why you're so happy," he says.  "You're going to the vet today."

It turns out, the vet needs to keep her for a few days.  She's already been spayed but they'll have to amputate her bad leg, and would he like to hear about their pet augmentation packages?  Sarif employees get a partner discount!

No, thank you.  Yes, he's sure.  She'll be fine with what's left.

Three days later, she's home.  (Her home, now.  Their home.)  There's a bounce to her and she won't leave him alone, even when it's time to go to bed and he's trying to get her to calm down.  She spins in a circle on his bed, trying to get him up, trying to get him to play, like she wants to make up for lost time.

There, as he's lying on his back, that's when it hits him like it never had before, like he never allowed it to—Kubrick.  Kubrick who's dead now, and if Adam had known...God, if he'd know when he walked out that door that it would be the last time…

He throws a hand over his mouth and fuck, there's no stopping it, now.  His thoughts are run away on their own and his chest is heaving.  If he'd known he was saying goodbye, but he was oblivious on a slab while Kubrick died, he died by a needle, he died surrounded by strangers, he died thinking Adam abandoned him...

"I wasn't...there," he chokes out.  "I wasn't there for him."

His arm over his eyes now as he calms down.  His little toasted marshmallow ventures over, watches him with her one good eye, head cocked, then nudges at him until he curls up around her.

Thousands of stray dogs in Detroit.  Why this one?


End file.
